Posted
by
Roblimoon Tuesday June 24, 2014 @05:59PM
from the someday-will-we-be-as-interchangeable-as-our-tools? dept.

Their main claim: "Sigsense Sensors are field-switchable sensing modules which replace the current generation of single purpose instruments. All Sigsense Sensors connect to the Sigsense Wireless Dock through a common interface. This portability and convenience allows workers to always carry the right instrument for the job." In other words, a technician in a food manufacturing plant doesn't need to carry a humidity-measuring tool, a multimeter, a signal strength meter, and four or five other measuring tools, to the point where he's got a backpack full of instrumentation or a rolling a cart full of measuring devices. That technician can now (in theory) carry a single, wireless sensor body, and put the sensors he needs on it as easily as you change heads on an electric hair trimmer. Check their blurb on AngelList for more about what this company is up to, and note that they are going way beyond making one measurement at a time. They're talking about collecting instrument data, along with tracking technicians, and sending all this data to the cloud, where you can do with it as you wish. But not today. The website says they will have products available "soon." (Alternate Video Link)

Tim:
Nick, what is that Sigsense does?

Nick:
So Sigsense technology is a connected smart test and measurement
company. So we’re making test and measurement equipment that
allows enterprises to have connectivity down to the sensing elements
that they’re using to do their day-to-day jobs.

Tim:
Now, let’s put that in real world terms, what does that mean?

Nick:
So it means that there are – in the world today there are
people out in the world taking measurements, they’re using
multimeters, they’re using thermal imagers, they’re out
there doing jobs, maintaining and installing equipments, and a lot of
these equipment isn’t connected to the internet. And so what
that means is that you have people taking measurements and when they
need to do something with that data, they are writing things down on
pen and paper, they’re going home and writing reports, they’re
sitting in a truck and writing reports and if you want to have a
chain of custody on to that data or if you want to be able to do
analytics based on the data, analyze how your workforce is doing,
it’s very difficult or impossible.

Tim:
So how do you short circuit that paper support start?

Nick:
Yeah. So our solution is all about connectivity, so we’re
creating a connected test and measurement platform, here’s a
prototype of it right here. And so the idea is that this is your test
device, this connects to your cellphone over Bluetooth, so device you
already have and once you are in a cellphone you have card
connectivity and we can push all of the connectivity services that
enterprises and people care about to do automatic data, archiving of
sensor data, so taking it, enable infield collaboration of teams out
in the field working.

Tim:
So I think this is kind of a working model or say a work in progress,
and the actual container is for batteries and what else?

Nick:
Yeah. So in here, we’re keeping it real simple, so it’s
actually mostly battery, it’s a Bluetooth linked to your phone
and it’s a little bit of computing electronics to handle that
link, we have as minimal a user interface on this as we think we can
get away with, so we have a button to take measurements and to do
pairing and stuff and we’ll have a small but very beautiful
OLED display to monitor what sensor you have connected, see a little
bit of the measurement information, but really push that user
interface on to the mobile device.

Tim:
So what are some of the actual sensors, what sort of capabilities
do you see being attached to this?

Nick:
Yeah, so we’ve really architected our system to be modular,
and so we can support multiple sensors going forward, but the first
one that we’ve designed and that we’re going for to
market with is our thermal imager. So you can see an example right
here. This is what we’re currently working to integrate into
this module. It’s the same size. And so thermal imager, it
gives you a heat image. One of the reasons we’ve chosen is that
it’s used by everyone, so HVAC people use it to troubleshoot
and install heating and air conditioning systems, leak detection
firms use it to find water leaks behind walls that you can’t
see, manufacturing lines use it troubleshoot mechanical systems that
might have heat related failures like motors or any of that stuff. So
this is our first product and then we’re evaluating and
prioritizing other sensors, so we envisioned multimeters, electrical
testers, gas sensors, whatever our initial customers really are
asking for.

Tim:
What will it cost?

Nick:
Pardon?

Tim:
What will it cost?

Nick:
So our initial price target is around $1,000 for this and that’s
really cost competitive for thermal imagers in the market, and the
real benefit is that total cost of ownership really starts plummeting
due to the modularity, so if you spend around $1,000 for a thermal
imager and then in year two we come out with a suite of gas sensors
or a multimeter, you’re only buying the sensing component,
because we’ve already bundled your user interface and
everything into these docks that you already have. So total cost of
ownership for an individual or enterprise is going to be
significantly less based on the equipment there you have.

Tim:
Can I ask you one more question about the UI?

Nick:
Yeah.

Tim:
Since what you got here is a handle with battery and transmitter.

Nick:
Yeah.

Tim:
And you’re attaching the sort of anonymous looking sensor
units.

Nick:
Yeah.

Tim:
People who are used to using let’s say a multimeter... how
will you get people to actually operate it and meet with all the
muscle memory that got built out?

Nick:
Yeah, so that one is very dependent on the type of sensor that
we’re talking about and that’s something that we really
want to respect is that people have a long history with these test
and measurement devices, whether you’re using a multimeter and
you’ve been using it for 20 years, or you’ve been using
thermal imagers for five years or gas sensors. That stuff will go
into our user interface design both in the app and then in the cloud
to view the data, just respecting that lineage of these devices and
not making it difficult for people to jump to based on their
experience.

Yes, and it is an ad for proprietary sensors with a closed, undocumented, and uninteresting interface. If it was an open standard, where anyone could read the docs, and design either sensors or tools, that would be cool. But that is NOT what this is.

I mean, really. Granted, I have some animosity toward him on general principle -- I think he's a bit of a jerk. But more seriously, he keeps putting out these videos that are essentially the multimedia equivalent of a vendor press release. Why should I care? There are so many cool things that videos could be made of, you gotta wonder why we should care about these even a little bit.

Get Command Taco and Hemos on and have them talk like in the olden days. Get videos with interesting content from (say) a kernel conference, or an embedded conference. Get Google to give some down-low on Android development. Find a cool something that *isn't* vaporware. (Having worked for two failed startups -- both of which had really cool ideas on which they couldn't fully execute -- I'm far too familiar with just how ethereal vaporware really is.) Get some black hats to talk about root server DNS vulnerabilities, or real-life ways to fight DDoS attacks. Get a banker and a BitCoin guy in the same room and see who walks out at the end. Arduino! ARM! 64-bit ARM! IPv6 adoption rates and how to make use of it, especially since the country's largest cable provider, Comcast, has pushed it out to the majority of their subscribers -- something most people seem not to have noticed! Linux-based intro to robotics that's more than just video from a FIRST competition! Al Franken on Net Neutrality! Of course, this might actually take *EFFORT*, as opposed to asking vendors if they want to sell stuff. But that's kinda what journalists are, y'know, supposed to do.

I was instrumental in the non-launch of a Linux magazine. I planted the right idea in the right person's brain, and he was going to go with it... but then he kinda bailed on magazines altogether as part of his divorce.

All things being equal, that was probably the best choice after all, anyway. I hadn't realized just how hard magazines were gonna get hammered by the web. (I used to live in a town that had a HUGE number of tech magazines published from it. The late 90's were not a good decade, there.)